Ligety is back for another Olympics, after a long and painful road

U.S. Alpine skier Ted Ligety slowly started to find his groove this season, and on Jan. 28, in his last race before the Winter Games, he reached the podium again in the giant slalom.

U.S. Alpine skier Ted Ligety slowly started to find his groove this season, and on Jan. 28, in his last race before the Winter Games, he reached the podium again in the giant slalom.

Photo: Washington Post Photo By Toni L. Sandys

Photo: Washington Post Photo By Toni L. Sandys

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U.S. Alpine skier Ted Ligety slowly started to find his groove this season, and on Jan. 28, in his last race before the Winter Games, he reached the podium again in the giant slalom.

U.S. Alpine skier Ted Ligety slowly started to find his groove this season, and on Jan. 28, in his last race before the Winter Games, he reached the podium again in the giant slalom.

Photo: Washington Post Photo By Toni L. Sandys

Ligety is back for another Olympics, after a long and painful road

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DAEGWALLYEONG, South Korea - Over the summer and into the fall, Ted Ligety's long road back was starting to appear headed for an unforgiving dead end. Injuries and time away from the hill had taken their toll, and Ligety looked nothing like the skier who'd raced in three Olympics, who'd won two gold medals and posted 25 World Cup victories in his decorated career.

"He had missed so much training that his rhythm and timing was off," said Sasha Rearick, the head coach for the U.S. men's alpine team. "I'm not going to lie. In August, his skiing was not in his top form, by far. There was a lot of steps we had to take."

Ligety had missed most of the previous two seasons because of injuries: a knee in 2016 and his back in 2017. With little time to prepare for the Pyeongchang Games, Ligety and his coaches agreed he needed to take a step back, focusing on gentler runs. Rearick likened it to a weekend skier who needs to progress from easier green runs to expert-level blacks.

"That's one of the reason why Ted is such a champion: He knows that going back and getting those fundamental rhythms down are essential for his performance," Rearick said.

Ligety slowly started to find his groove, and on Jan. 28, in his last race before the Winter Games, he reached the podium again in the giant slalom, the first time in more than two years. The third-place finish in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, he hopes, bodes well for these Olympics, where Ligety likely represents the U.S. men's team's best chance at a medal.

"It was good to be back in a spot where I feel like I can challenge for wins," he said. "It's been a long time since I've been on the podium. . . . It's definitely nice to do it the race before the Olympics as well. It's a good time to have that confidence boost."

Ligety is suddenly the face of the U.S. men's alpine team. These Pyeongchang Games mark the first Olympics since 1994 without Bode Miller, now retired and working as an NBC analyst. Travis Ganong, an silver medalist from the 2015 world championships, tore an anterior cruciate ligament last month, and Steven Nyman, a veteran of three Olympics, tore an ACL in a training run on Jan. 25, one day after he was named to the Pyeongchang-bound team.

"We're so used to having teammates go down, you feel bad for them," Ligety said.

Entering Olympic competition, Ligety is ranked No. 37 in the World Cup overall standings, the top-ranked American male. At No. 45, Bryce Bennett is the only other U.S. racer among the top 60. The Americans have 12 men altogether on their Olympic alpine team. Only Ligety has found the podium this year, and just two others have cracked the top 10. Andrew Weibrecht, competing in his third Olympics, is again the team's wild card. Despite relatively modest results on the World Cup circuit, he has managed to win two Olympic Super G medals, a bronze in 2010 and a silver four years later.

Ligety looked like a dark horse, too, for much of the World Cup season. Coaches felt like he started to find his rhythm as the new year approached, cracking the top 10 in two World Cup stops in December.

"I was frustrated that the results weren't coming faster, I would say," Ligety said. "I'm competitive. I want to be up there competing for podiums and wins. I felt like I was close."

Finally, in his last chance before Pyeongchang, he broke through. The third-place finish was a big relief. His last podium came more than two years ago, a 2015 stop in Beaver Creek, Colorado.

"That's a step in the right direction," Ligety said Tuesday. "There's still some ground that needs to be gained to reach that next couple steps above that. Hopefully I can continue that progression and get faster."

He also feels good about this Olympic course. The U.S. team jokes that he's the defending Pyeongchang champion because he won the last World Cup event here, back in 2006. "That was a long time ago, obviously," he said.

But a veteran skier knows to cling to any reasons for optimism. For Ligety, this latest Olympic chapter has been the bumpiest. He's 33 now, and no longer the giant slalom racer with the target on his back. Austria's mighty Marcel Hirscher is the favorite every time he sets foot on the mountain. Hirscher has raced five giant slalom events this season, winning four and settling for bronze in the fifth. (The World Cup's overall leader, he's even more dominant in the slalom, where he's entered eight races, won six and took silver in another.)

"I feel like I'm skiing well," Ligety said. "Am I skiing at the highest level I ever have? It's hard to say. . . . I feel like I'm getting close to that."